I have known writers who paid no damned attention whatever to the rules of grammar and rhetoric and somehow made the language behave for them.

Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.

Any sportswriter who thinks the world is no bigger than the outfield fence in not only a bad citizen, but also a lousy sportswriter.

My best girl is dead.

I think it's the real world. The people we're writing about in professional sports, they're suffering and living and dying and loving and trying to make their way through life just as the brick layers and politicians are.

Dying is no big deal. Living is the trick.

Writing is very much like bricklaying. You learn to put one brick on top of another and spread the mortar so thick.